


Memories and Mind Games

by Blue



Category: S.C.I.谜案集 | S.C.I. Mystery (TV)
Genre: Bai Qintang and Zhan Yao being scary over Bai Yutong, Bonus: Bai Yutong on painkillers, Gen, Long term effects of memory loss, families are complicated
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2020-06-10 07:35:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19496881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blue/pseuds/Blue
Summary: Bai Yutong goes into surgery and Bai Qintang ponders the alternate universe of her life. Meanwhile, Zhan Yao may be good at lying but he's not necessarily as good at the follow through (fortunately, he has her to fix it).





	Memories and Mind Games

**Author's Note:**

> · The short version is if Bai Qintang is _vice_ -president of Bai Enterprises (by the show's English subs), and given Papa Bai was off being a policeman, then I'm putting Mama Bai at the head of the company.
> 
> · I didn't tag Bai Qintang/Gongsun Zhe because it's unspoken here, but yes. Bai Yutong/Zhan Yao can also be assumed. The overall rating is for implied violence.
> 
> · Both Bai Qintang's memory loss/recovery and Zhan Yao's skills of psychological suggestion owe more to show reality than _reality_ reality.
> 
> · BIG thanks to Sophia for checking this over for grammar and typos despite having no clue who the characters were ♥

Qintang was at her desk when the text came through from Gongsun: _Bai Yutong injured. Going into surgery now. EXPECT FULL RECOVERY_

She froze for a moment, swallowing down the instinctive rage and taking deep breaths until her hands stopped trembling, until the urge to throw something passed. In the office she needed to convince everyone she was in control of her emotions and there was a difference between simply raising her voice — acceptable — and yelling because she'd lost control — most certainly _not_ acceptable _._ She'd been caught losing control too many times in the office by people willing to run to her mother, or by her mother herself, to risk anything she could help.

It was times like this that she wished she had a punching bag in her office like Yutong had in his. She had one at home and it helped when the anger surged, but Bai Enterprises wasn't the police bureau and it hardly fit the pretext she was a stable and restrained woman, one without electricity firing wildly through the mangled connections of her brain. Instead, she breathed through it until the storm under her skin eased, at least a little. Once it did and she could think more clearly, she considered the options. The easiest was simply going to the hospital and no one would dare stop her, but there was still the issue of the files on her desk. The ones that came with the expectation that she report to the company's Paris offices within the next few days to supervise the reorganization, which would take months, if not a year or more.

It felt like she'd barely settled into her new office _here_ and her mother was ready to send her away again, but her parents had always liked to keep her from standing too firmly on her feet, keep her from staying too long in Hong Kong, keep her possessiveness from spinning out of control. The one and only time she'd protested another distant relocation, they'd just shown her photos of the gouges she'd once left on Yutong's arms rather than be separated from him. So over the years she'd cared for him from a distance as best she could, and they'd always permitted her brief visits, but when the opportunity had come up to stay longer.... She'd known it would mean treading carefully. Gongsun had been and continued to be a lovely distraction, and she hadn't thought she'd given them any reason to worry, but then the Paris folders had arrived along with the relevant electronic files.

Precisely why she’d been given relocation orders was a frustrating enigma, but it could be a logical decision: Since her detective duties with the ICCB were sporadic and largely consulting, which was handled remotely, her mother was accustomed to Qintang being the most mobile of them and to her serving as hands on company administration overseas. If it were force of habit rather than a reaction to anything in particular, then Qintang still had a chance. If she could keep her head, anyway. If she stormed in and lost her temper now it would be guaranteed failure and the way her blood was fizzing through her veins wouldn't make it easy. She took another deep breath, stood, and, with the word _control_ at the forefront of her mind, left her own office to walk the route to her mother's.

Once through her mother's assistant and into her office, Qintang said, "There is no need for me to personally oversee the Paris reorganization. I can be more effective here."

Her mother looked up at her, expression pleasant and entirely unreadable. "You want to stay in Hong Kong?" she asked.

Qintang hesitated. She didn't know what the right answer was since _want_ shouldn't figure into it, but getting it wrong would likely mean the assignment would stand. Unfortunately, the truth and the only answer her mother would believe were likely the same. "Yes," Qintang answered, with deliberate simplicity. One should never offer more information than necessary in delicate negotiations.

The silence stretched several moments longer while Qintang felt her entire self being weighed in the balance, but finally her mother nodded. "Very well, I'll send Xu Wei."

Qintang's head swam a little from relief. _Calm_ , she reminded herself, _you are completely calm._

"You'll continue on here as you have been for the time being," her mother continued, "and we can discuss any changes to that soon, but right now you'll go to the hospital."

If Qintang hadn't been in such rigid control, she would have undoubtedly lost her neutral expression at that order. In an instant, she re-evaluated the last several minutes: the look on the assistant's face when Qintang walked past her, how her mother had just been staring at the top of her desk when Qintang walked in, that she'd approved Qintang to stay even realizing the likely motivation for the request. In the next instant a fierce, hot satisfaction whipped through her and set her heart to racing. _She'd agreed anyway!_

Still watching her steadily, her mother added, "I wouldn't trade you, Qintang."

Qintang held her breath and waited, but no association with those words swam up from the depths. Her newer memories, the ones from the second half of her life, largely operated okay, but her mother and father in particular sometimes threw out old references and she never knew when they would connect and when they wouldn't. Lost memory from before or something more recent anyone would have forgotten? Still coming up blank, she blurted, "What?" Then immediately corrected her bluntness. "I'm sorry, I don't know what you mean."

Her mother stood up and walked around the desk to stand in front of her. "When you were younger, after the incident, you asked me if I would trade you for your old self. If there were two of you, if one had been injured and one hadn't, would I trade you for her. I never answered you then, but I'm answering you now." She took Qintang's face in her hands and kissed her on the forehead. "I wouldn't trade you, Qintang." She stepped back, still with that small, disconcerting smile. "Go to the hospital and please advise me of any updates to his condition."

She took it for the dismissal it was because her heart was still beating too hard and too fast and Qintang desperately needed to be out of the room. By inclination and through too much time overseas, Qintang rarely executed courtesy to her mother's standards, but she did her best to bow deep enough to formally acknowledge both respect and the two gifts she'd just been given. When she straightened, her mother was just watching her, so Qintang turned and left, in as much careful control as when she'd entered.

Back in her own office, she calmly packed up with the assumption she'd work remotely for a few days, collected the twins, and headed for the parking garage. As soon as they were in the car, Ding Zhaolan turned around and asked, "Uh, da-jie, where are we going?"

Perched lightly on the seat, muscles still carefully locked, she felt herself fracture. As the pressure of holding everything in bubbled over all at once, Qintang screamed. It was a scream of success and unfocused, inexplicable rage, of _too much_ everything she'd been trying to hold in all spilling out. Once she was done, she took a deep, ragged breath and screamed again, fists pounding the seat to either side of her, nails cutting sharp into her palms. The silence echoed when she finally stopped the second time, her ears ringing. There was an ache in her muscles from the tension she'd been holding, a sharp rasp in her throat from the screaming, and it wasn't as satisfying as a punching bag, but she could _breathe_.

Clearing her throat, she said quietly, "The hospital."

"Which—"

She looked up to find Ding Zhaohui had one hand over his brother's mouth and was texting with the other. Ding Zhaohui was always the smart one. His phone chimed with a return text almost immediately. "They took him by air to Hong Kong Sanatorium," he reported, "so the usual."

Qintang rolled her eyes; it said far too much about their family that they had a _usual_ hospital.

***

When she walked into the familiar waiting area, Zhan Yao was, of course, already there. He was a disaster: hair in disarray, suit rumpled with the dark navy of his pants and jacket discolored in patches, dust and sweat streaked on his exposed skin. He was ostensibly calm but sitting bolt upright and staring straight ahead. Had it not been for the contents of Gongsun's text, she'd rapidly be coming to the worst conclusions. Instead, Zhan Yao's thinly veiled fear helped her own persistent worry because her mind was nothing if not contrary.

He finally clocked her presence when she settled into the seat next to him, kicked off her shoes, and tucked her feet up for the wait ahead.

"Da-jie," he acknowledged, then fell silent again.

"Tell me," she prompted. Or possibly ordered in a way that was too harsh for the situation, but it didn't matter with Zhan Yao. He would do as he pleased and not judge her for it either way.

"Shot, stabbed, dislocated shoulder, and possible concussion," he answered. "Initial scans look like his stupidly good luck held, but he lost a lot of blood."

Her heart twinged. "And you seem to be wearing quite a lot of it."

Before he could respond, the quiet stillness was broken by Uncle Bao rushing in, a flurry of contained energy. He nodded at her as he sat on Zhan Yao's other side and leaned close, his eyes sharp in a way that made her want to shove between him and Zhan Yao.

"What happened in there?" Uncle Bao asked.

Zhan Yao turned a little to look at Uncle Bao and said with a faint trace of confusion, "What do you mean? Has no one reported to you yet? They—"

"I'm not referring to what everyone outside the construction site knows about," Uncle Bao interrupted. "I'm referring to what happened inside between you and Su Xiang after your ear piece stopped transmitting."

"The ear piece? Su Xiang grabbed it off my ear and threw it behind me. I didn't see where it landed, but I remember thinking at the time it sounded wet, like maybe one of the open buckets of paint."

"Yes, I've been told that much. They searched but it hasn't been found. What happened _after_ that, Zhan Yao?"

"We talked and he agreed to let us go. It was a successful hostage negotiation."

Oh, so it had been like that. There wasn't so much as a trace of shadows in Xiao Zhan's voice, of course, because he was _very_ good at lying, but she knew him.

"Successful— You… _talked_." Uncle Bao's voice was practically dripping disbelief, because he knew Xiao Zhan too. "Before your ear piece was turned off, he was speaking coherently and resolute about his course of action. Currently he has no connection to reality. In fact, he started screaming on the way to the East Kowloon Centre and wouldn't stop so they've put him on heavy sedatives."

"He's in good hands then. East Kowloon is an excellent facility and are sure to rehabilitate him in short order."

Uncle Bao lifted an eyebrow. "Dr. Zhan, as I understand the series of events, Bai Yutong fought with Su Xiang, took a blow to the head, was stabbed, and subsequently taken hostage. Ma Han couldn't get a clear line of sight so you went in to negotiate. After that, Bai Yutong was shot, your ear piece was turned off, and then you and Su Xiang _talked_ for thirteen minutes. You passed within sight of the officers outside three times during those thirteen minutes and then, suddenly, you came running out to grab a medic while yelling it was all clear. Officers rushed in behind you and found Su Xiang sitting on the floor and staring into space with his gun tossed two feet away."

Zhan Yao appeared to consider it for a moment, then he nodded. "Yes, that sounds correct. He surrendered."

Uncle Bao sighed.

It was a near thing, but Qintang managed to keep from smiling. This was definitely one of those times she shouldn't smile where anyone else could see her. Instead, she distracted herself from the urge by decoding Uncle Bao's expression while he studied Zhan Yao. It appeared to be a mix of exasperation, suspicion, and fear; exasperation and suspicion were reasonable enough, but the fear was a little puzzling. Fear for Yutong was to be expected, but out of place in the conversation. For Zhan Yao then? _Of_ Zhan Yao?

For all that he passed as even tempered and sane, she'd overheard enough to know their parents and Uncle Bao considered him even more volatile than her and in need of careful management. Qintang leaned her head against his shoulder, tucked her arm around his, and hummed happily. She'd always liked Zhan Yao, even when she couldn't quite remember him for a little while.

Uncle Bao made a disgruntled noise. "I suppose we should be doubly grateful the doctors think he will make a full recovery." He stood and clapped Zhan Yao on the shoulder. "SCI is on stand down until Bai Yutong is cleared to return to duty. Take care of him, Zhan Yao." He shook his head, nodded at Qintang again, and walked out more slowly than he'd arrived.

While Qintang mentally reviewed where the security cameras were in the room, Zhan Yao reoriented back against the seat and adjusted his arm gently under her head. Confident that their mouths weren't in view of any recordings, she asked, "Did you get rid of it?"

"What?" he asked absently.

"Did you get rid of the ear piece as you should have or is it, as I suspect, still in your jacket pocket?" He was very good at lying, but he wasn't necessarily good at the follow through.

The guilty silence next to her was all the answer she needed. Fortunately, he had her to fix it.

"Leaving it at the scene where you said it was would have been best, but I understand you were in a hurry and distracted by Yutong's injuries." She would have been in the same situation, if she were being honest, but it was important he know the ideal execution. "Next time—"

"You assume there's going to be a—"

"Shut up and listen. Next time, at least drop it in a random trash bin or toss it in the harbor as soon as you're alone. Now say 'yes, da-jie'."

"Yes, da-jie." He was looking at her with dark, solemn eyes and dirt smudged on his cheek, every bit as adorable as he'd been when he was half as tall.

"Good boy." She raised her voice in the direction of twins. "Ding Zhaolan, go find a pair of scrubs for Dr. Zhan to change into so he can get out of these filthy clothes. They're hardly suitable for a hospital. While you're at it, find out where he can shower." She looked up Zhan Yao. "Once you've cleaned up and changed, I'll have Ding Zhaohui take your suit to be cleaned, or possibly burned." Then, just to be absolutely clear, she added, "Don't clean out your pockets too well, Xiao Zhan."

"Understood, da-jie."

She smiled and kissed him on the cheek.

A bit later, Ding Zhaolan cruised past her with a bag that presumably held Zhan Yao's clothes and any incriminating evidence they might contain. He handed the bag off to Ding Zhaohui who didn't wait for instructions before leaving to take care of the contents. It wasn't much longer before Zhan Yao himself returned in a cleaner condition with wet, slicked back hair and wearing doctor's scrubs.

"You smell much better," she said as she took possession of his arm again. "As it was, Yutong would have started screaming about the mess the moment he woke up and took a look at you."

Zhan Yao snorted. "He hates waking up in the hospital. He's going to be grumpy either way."

"I'm not fond of it myself," she said. "Especially this hospital."

He leaned his head toward her and side-eyed her with an inquiring look.

"I was here when I was little, after I was shot. In a coma for some of it, of course, but after I woke up too."

"You were so close when we thought you were so far. That must have been a difficult time for you."

"It was frustrating, especially since it was hard for me to explain things at first. And boring. Mom and Dad couldn't visit much because of work and Yutong. They told me he was too young to know, that he'd be scared. I didn't want to scare him but he was someone I remembered and I missed him." She remembered her rage and tears and the endless, endless hours of boredom broken up only by endless, endless hours of repetition as she relearned the odd things she'd lost. Stupid things, like how to tie her shoes. She'd had headaches back then, too, as it had all healed. They'd come and gone, and sometimes the pain was just annoying, but sometimes it was terrible. Those had been the worst days, when she couldn't remember anything but pain and confusion and loneliness.

"What do you think that other Qintang would have been like?" she asked him.

"The other Qintang?" He sounded amused. "There's another one I don't know about?"

She rolled her eyes. "The one who didn't get shot in the head. Theoretical Qintang."

He shifted his arm and her head a bit so that he could take her hand. "What do you mean?"

"Because I acted different after I came back." She shrugged the shoulder not pressed up against his. "I've always wondered what I would have been like if I hadn't been shot. The other version is Theoretical Qintang."

Zhan Yao didn't respond right away and the quiet stretched out. She'd almost forgotten they'd been talking when suddenly he said, "Da-jie, you didn't have a different personality after you were shot. When you came back it was a little confusing that you didn't recognize me at first, but you were pretty much the same as you'd always been."

What? No, that couldn't be right. "Everyone said so!"

"Who said so? People bring their own issues to these perspectives, especially guilt, and there seems to have been a lot of guilt over what happened to you."

"You've seen Yutong's scars!" she hissed. Had Zhan Yao been there? She wasn't sure, but he usually was back then, so most likely yes.

He hummed thoughtfully. "I remember you didn't want to let Bai Yutong out of your sight, but the two of you were close before and had just experienced an abrupt, extended separation. Not to mention you'd been through a lot of upheaval along with mental and physical trauma. Holding on physically when so much had been taken from your memories was a perfectly normal reaction."

She leaned far enough away to stare at him, her mind a messy jumble.

"I mean, you've always been bossy, hot-headed, possessive—"

She narrowed her eyes, but he just grinned.

"Really though?" she asked. "I mean that there is no…" The words tied up in the back of her throat and she substituted with a wave of her hand.

"Really. There is no theoretical Qintang, not to me. The differences, if there were any, certainly weren't so big as you're imagining. You are now and have always been the one and only Bai Qintang."

She curled back up against his arm, laid her head back on his shoulder, and pondered that. It wasn't an option she'd ever really considered. Everyone she'd mentioned it to, out of those people who'd known her before and after, they either agreed with her or said it didn't matter. Yutong hadn't _disagreed_ when she'd explained it to him, but he'd been very upset that he hadn't noticed. _"I just thought you'd been gone a long time, da-jie."_ he'd said, sounding guilt stricken. If she'd been so different, wouldn't it have been more obvious? Less surprising when he found out?

"Huh," she said, "I am the only Bai Qintang." It sounded strange to say it, surreal even. Was the ghost of herself she'd lived with all this time really just her own reflection?

"You're stuck with yourself now," Zhan Yao said chipperly and she punched his arm with her free hand. "Ow! Hey!"

"Such a baby. We're in the hospital, do you need to have that checked out?"

He grumbled. "What did I ever do to deserve the Bai siblings."

"Something amazing, obviously." There was an excitement starting to percolate under her skin again. "If I'm the one and only Bai Qintang then I want a punching bag in my office like Yutong has in his."

"Well I'm not a substitute in the meantime," he bitched, still sulking. "I'm sure you bought the first one so you can just order a second one."

She lay her head back on his shoulder and smiled. "Yes, I can."

After that, the time passed at it usually did in waiting rooms, which was to say slowly, but eventually Gongsun emerged. He looked tired, but he'd slept only a few hours in the last two days before going in to assist in surgery, so it wasn't surprising. She straightened and asked, "How is he?"

"I can tell you he has a very nice spleen," Gongsun snapped, a little mean with exhaustion and relief.

She stared him down and lifted an eyebrow.

"Gongsun," Zhan Yao said quietly, his arm tense under Qintang's.

Gongsun shifted his focus to Zhan Yao and added more gently, "and it's miraculously intact along with all his other major organs and arteries. It's going to take a lot of rest by his standards for everything to heal correctly, and he'll be a complete pain in the ass, but he'll be fine— No, sit down. They're still getting him settled and they know to come get you as soon as he is."

***

Zhan Yao, of course, stayed the night while Qintang took Gongsun home and tucked him into bed. She arrived back to the hospital first thing in the morning to find Yutong had come out of the anesthesia and was very, very high on painkillers. Which was _hilarious._ He doggedly kept trying to get up and cook her and Zhan Yao breakfast while being inexplicably SO excited she'd dropped by. He'd get no more than an inch each time before he collapsed back because his core muscles refused to cooperate. After that, he'd ask what the hell was going on and either Zhan Yao or Qintang would explain. His understanding would last about five minutes before he'd forget and then the scene would replay itself, the whole cycle repeating until he passed out again. He'd sleep for a little while, wake up, and it would start all over.

After the first round, she and Zhan Yao just traded off on telling Yutong increasingly outlandish reasons for his hospitalization.

The second day post-surgery he finally returned to lucidity, and was predictably grumpy. While he'd been lucky with the injuries, they were still badly located and painful, leaving him unable to sit up without help and groggy enough from the medication that no one trusted him to stand unassisted. Yutong didn't agree, but Zhan Yao's threat to post the video he'd taken the day before was so far keeping him in line.

While Yutong pouted over his favorite noodles she'd arranged to be delivered, Qintang said to Zhan Yao, "You're so sneaky, Xiao Zhan. I would have just tied him to the bed."

Yutong looked offended. "Like that could hold me!"

"Even if you could get free, would you dare?" she asked with narrowed eyes.

Zhan Yao smirked. "No, he wouldn't, because you trained him early to jump when you said so. Or not, as the case may be." Then he poked Yutong's arm. "Hey, remember playing soldiers when we were kids?"

"Of course I do," Yutong said dryly. "Da-jie is still the most terrifying drill instructor I've ever had. And that's big talk from you considering I've never seen you follow orders so quickly as you did then." Then he looked at her and said, "You don't remember it, do you?"

She hesitated for a moment, not quite used to admitting it after so many years hiding it from him, but then just shook her head. "No. Sometimes something will trigger a memory, but not this time."

Yutong nodded, then asked Zhan Yao, "Remember that time she gave Pan Yi a black eye?"

"He deserved it," Zhan Yao responded immediately, almost like a reflex.

"We were what, five? I don't even remember what he did, just you yelling _da-jie!_ and her storming over to lay him out with one punch."

"Well you were about to do something stupid and he was twice your size, so I called in the scariest person I knew."

Yutong started to laugh and then visibly regretted it. "Ow, fuck, that hurts. Yeah, we all got in trouble that time but it was worth it."

"Then, a couple of years later, you went off to the same summer camp as him and became _friends._ " 

Qintang grinned at the disdain in Zhan Yao's voice.

"Are you really still mad about that, Cat? Did you miss me that much?"

Zhan Yao scoffed. "Hardly. I had peace and quiet for a change."

Suddenly a memory surfaced and Qintang let herself fall into it before it slipped away again. It was her and Xiao Zhan lying in the garden behind his house, her holding a letter and neither of them happy. There was a sense of other memories folding out from that moment: the two of them sitting on the edge of the pool at her own house with lunch between them, in her room plotting together while rain fell outside. The memories all had the same sense of gloom, of the world being too quiet. "Yes," she said slowly, feeling her way through, "you _did_ miss him. We spent most of the month scheming how to get him back."

They both looked at her and then Yutong looked at Zhan Yao, who's cheeks were turning faintly pink.

Yutong's expression transformed into complete glee.

"We weren't sure whether or not you'd come willingly—" she had thought yes, obviously, Xiao Zhan had gloomily argued no "—so we had two categories of ideas: ones with your cooperation and ones without." The plans themselves remained hazy and mysterious, but she remembered them taking turns and reciting them back to each other because they didn't dare write them down and didn't want to forget the details.

Zhan Yao was pinching the bridge of his nose, conveniently hiding most of his face with his hand.

"Wow, this is almost worth waking up in the hospital for," Yutong said and slurped at his noodles.

Zhan Yao got snappish after that, or pretended to anyway, but his claws were sheathed as they usually were with Yutong. She'd seen them come out with other people and knew how sharp they were, how given just a little time he could destroy someone without leaving a mark. _I'm glad you stayed in Hong Kong,_ she'd said to him a couple of months ago, and he'd looked at her like he'd understood exactly what she meant. How it was more than just _in Hong Kong_ , how it was by Yutong's side, how she was relieved he was there to watch Yutong's back. Zhan Yao would go to whatever means necessary to ensure Yutong's safety and she slept easier with that knowledge.

A fondness for the two bickering boys in front of her warmed her chest and soothed the itch under her skin. It was fortunate Yutong had Qintang and Zhan Yao to take care of him. _Real_ Qintang; Theoretical Qintang certainly wouldn't have been any good at this job. After all, it called for ruthlessness and persistence and refusing to let go. She smiled. Yes, there was only one Bai Qintang and she was exactly where she needed to be.


End file.
